Cultivated Elderberries

Elderberries are common in southern Wisconsin. These large bushes grow readily along bicycle and hiking paths, railroad tracks, field edges and highways. Their huge white flower clusters are unmistakable in mid-summer. As the season progresses, the flower clusters become tiny purple berries. Elderberries have been used medicinally for hundreds of years. They are especially helpful in reducing the length of the common cold.

Here at Red Bucket Farm, we've been cultivating elderberry bushes for a few years. We planted two varieties for better pollination, and we sited them carefully in a restricted terrace area. We hoped to disguise the water barrels and hay storage from view while still producing something useful. For a while it worked and we loved the elderberry elixir that we made from the juice.

This year we're learning the downside of cultivated elderberries: they simply do not cooperate! The bushes die back each fall and when they emerge in the spring they don't necessarily grow where they were intended. In their second season, the new stems were close to the intended location, but this year they are sprouting six or eight feet from the correct place. Unfortunately, our style of dense, urban planting does not allow for that kind of freedom. We'll remove these bushes and redesign the water barrel terrace. We still have one or two elderberry bushes way out back where they can happily meander the edge of the woods. But gardeners beware--elderberries like plenty of space to move around!

Spring Fruit

A photo survey of the orchard this morning reveals several kinds of baby fruits. Can you name them?

Photos from top to bottom: cherries, crabapples, peach, apricot, pear, currants, kiwi. How did you do?

Mason Bees

We put the Mason Bees outdoors this morning. They have been in storage in the refrigerator for the winter, where they remain dormant but protected from sub-zero temperatures. (I have other strange things in my fridge, too---acorns, dormant onion plants and seed potatoes. Also hops and yeast, but we consider that quite normal.)

We expect the bees to be active in a few days. They will emerge from their cocoons and immediately begin pollinating. We try to time their emergence with the blooming of early fruit trees like apricot and crab apples. A few of our trees are almost at bloom stage, and the weather looks very promising this weekend.

Mason bees are solitary creatures that operate independently. There is no hive or honey, and they do not sting. They pollinate very efficiently, much more effectively than honey bees. They look a bit like a house fly. The females lay a single egg inside a straw-like tube, pack it with a bit of food and seal it with mud. She continues to alternate additional eggs and mud until she fills the tube.

We have several blocks of nesting tubes that we can rotate for cleaning purposes. I would caution against purchasing mason bees houses that look like tubes of bamboo bundled together. How does one clean those things?

At Red Bucket Farm, we have two Mason bees houses like the one pictured above. Both houses face east to catch the warmth of morning sunshine. The houses are sheltered from rain by the wide eaves of our house. They are situated close to our orchard trees so they don't have to travel far to accomplish their job.

Sadly, we lost all our honey bees over the winter, but that's a different post. See you outdoors!

Indoor Citrus

Mid-winter in Wisconsin can be dreary. As an urban farmer, I spend my winter perusing seed catalogs, planning next summer's veggie beds, mapping out crop rotation, and baking lots of pies and tarts with last summer's fruit harvest. 

Last winter I began indoor citrus. I purchased a bag of Meyer lemons from Trader Joe's in January 2015 and saved all the seeds from the lemons. (I also bought a bag of organic limes, only to discover they were seedless. Buyer beware!) I germinated the seeds in a small plastic bag with damp paper towels. It was easy. Then I transplanted the little seedlings into light soil and watched them take off.

To add variety to my indoor citrus grove, I purchased four trees from an online vendor---a Meyer Lemon, a Venous Orange, a Key Lime and a Mediterranean Olive tree. These trees were more mature than the seedlings I had started myself. The Meyer Lemon produced two blossoms and eventually two beautiful lemons. One of them we harvested over the weekend, which you see in the photo at the top of this blog post.

All the citrus seedlings grew rapidly over the summer. In November I transplanted them into slightly larger pots. It's been a challenging winter for my citrus trees. They have dropped nearly all their leaves and generally expressed their displeasure at my care. Nevertheless, these sturdy trees are producing tiny new shoots and leaves where the old ones fell off.

Watering citrus trees is tricky. They prefer dry soil, but not parched. It's taken me months of guessing to ascertain if I'm over- or under-watering. Finally, I purchased a moisture meter with a long probe to help me determine when to water.

This isn't an instant gratification project, but one taste of that sweet lemon juice (yes, Meyer Lemons are sweet, not sour) has motivated me to keep my citrus grove growing. It gives me hope in the winter months.

Epic Tomatoes

Over the winter, I read Craig LeHoullier's new book, Epic Tomatoes (2015, Storey Publishing). I was dubious that I could read an entire book about nothing but tomatoes, but Craig's book is compelling and inspiring; it influenced me to grow a much wider variety of tomatoes than ever before. His focus is on "heirloom" or open-pollinated varieties rather than hybrids. I've learned that if I'm willing to compromise on appearance and shipping/storage qualities, I'm likely to gain in fantastic and unique flavors.

Here is a photo of a variety called Purple Cherokee. The flesh is sweet, juicy and it is indeed purple-ish in color. Notice that this tomato is huge---one pound and four ounces. There are so many varieties of tomatoes to grow. It's ridiculously limiting to buy the few varieties that your garden center provides. We urge you to plan ahead for next year and try something new.

Now I'm back to the canning, freezing and processing that consumes my day. Happy gardening!

Ruthless and Strategic

Dee and Cathy have watched Red Bucket Farm grow over the last several years. They are dear friends who have shared many meals with us; they have also laughed and cried with us. So I'm not offended when they refer to my last blog as "the best rant on the internet" or when they describe me as a "ruthless and strategic" urban farmer.

Ruthless and strategic refers to the fact that I don't get emotionally attached to a bush or a tree or even a chicken. For example, we have been attempting to grow gooseberries for years. After two attempts in different locations and about six years invested, we have finally arrived at a crop large enough to produce one fruit pie. And guess what? Even though it was delicious, I'm pulling out those thorny bushes---way too much trouble and space for too little food. It's just a matter of practicality.

Reactions to my last blog (May 29, 2015, The Cost of Gardening) varied widely. Many were stunned and silent, and one person accused me of being hostile. Interestingly, the folks who agreed with me felt the need to do so privately. A friend who operates a small business understood entirely---so many people expect a discount large enough to obliterate his profit. But the most telling response came from a lifelong farmer, a pig expert who I know at my church. When I told him about the cost-of-gardening blog and the responses to it, he laughed out loud and said, "Now you understand the economics of agriculture."

Ruthless and strategic? Yes, indeed.

The Cost of Gardening

When I mention to acquaintances that I'm an urban farmer, they seem to have visions of pastoral beauty---tomatoes dangling lusciously from the vine, bees buzzing around the lavender, vegetable beds neatly weeded, homemade lemonade on the picnic table. Sounds fantastic, doesn't it? And oh, by the way, if you have a surplus of tomatoes, I'll be happy to take some off your hands, they mention casually.

Let's get this straight. Tomatoes do not just happen. Any serious urban farmer works year-round to make it happen. We order seeds in January and begin sowing indoors immediately. We carefully watch the spring weather, cultivating beds, adding compost, and finding the right time to transfer seedlings to the greenhouse for hardening, and ultimately to the beds. Then we watch for bugs and disease, using labor-intensive methods to organically solve problems. Finally, we enjoy the harvest. If we've done our work properly and the weather has been generous, there will be enough to freeze, can and preserve for use all winter long, perhaps even into the next season.

Several years ago, before I was a gardener, my friend Diana gave me one, gigantic sweet onion. It was the size of a softball. I cradled the onion in my hands and planned carefully how to use it in a meal, because I knew the onion came from her garden.

Gardening is like quilting. It's a labor of love. I don't give a quilt to anybody who does not truly understand and appreciate the hours it took to create. Quilters refer to gift recipients as "quilt worthy."

Gardening is not free. At Red Bucket Farm, we have thousands of dollars invested in raised beds, compost bins, bee hives, rain barrels, terracing (both wood and brick), fencing, sheds, coops, greenhouses, trellises, and arbors. We consider this our retirement investment plan. Plants also cost plenty, even when purchased bare root in the spring. Fruit trees run about $25 each, and that's when they are a tiny stick in the ground. It takes years for a tree to become fruitful. Chickens are not free, nor is chicken food.

I don't mean to be ungenerous, but urban farming is my job. Asking for the fruits of my labor is like asking for my paycheck. I'm happy to share with my friends, those lovely folks who pray for me and check on me regularly to make sure that I'm doing okay. I'm also happy to sell a few eggs when the flock is producing abundantly. But please---think twice before making assumptions. Are you veggie worthy?